I know it has been WAY too long! I haven't had a lot of extra time to transcribe letters and I apologize! Like I said before... LIFE keeps happening around me!! AHHH!
So Big Al is doing wonderful. I absolutely LOVE listening to the recordings. It is so much fun to actually hear life going on around him. In one of his letters there is a conversation going on between him and his companion and It was fun to be the fly on the wall listening to them. They had me laughing pretty hard. They love the people and they love the work and you can tell that they are happy where they are.
You can also tell that Alex is very apprehensive about the future and coming home. You can sense the fear and hesitation about coming home and what he should do when he gets here in his voice. Keep him in your prayers please. He has never loved change and always had to "work himself up" and prepare himself for it. He doesn't feel prepared at all for coming home. So although he is excited and misses us all, he is still hoping for some direction from God for his plan.
He got to visit with Charlie and Kevin last week! I'm hoping that that helped him in finding some relief for the future also! Besides seeing them he was also able to visit with cousin Tanner :) That was really cool! Except for that they both need their BUTT'S KICKED for not taking any pictures!!
One week is missing because they had a temple day and weren't able to really write. Also, last week's letter is missing because he accidentally forgot to attach one of the recordings. I asked him to send it with today's recordings so I can't get them up ASAP. He's also been a slacker about sending pictures (and all of the pictures I do have actually go to last week's letter so I'll wait to post them) I guess since he's been sending recordings and we get to hear his voice he doesn't think he needs to send pictures of his face?? LOL. Maybe this week...
Enjoy! Like I said they're longer but full of so much detail and personality. I love it!!
January 18th
He we are back to another week. January 11-17. I mentioned before, but it goes by super fast! I can't believe how fast it goes by!! I want to keep this one short and sweet. I got a lot of chores today for P-Day. I want to be able to get to read all your letters too, maybe write a few friends. I guess we'll just start!
Monday: I wrote Ya'll and read your letters. I actually have a few remarks for some of them when I get to your letters.
Tuesday: It was a fairly good day we actually dinners with the Garcia family. They were awesome! We actually shared a message called "Always remember him" and it's about Jesus Christ, when we partake of the sacrament how we're supposed to always remember him and the significance of what he did. I guess the video took the message to a whole other magnitude of the meaning of the sacrament. They like it! They really enjoyed it! I think Sister Garcia used it for a spiritual thought in her class on Sunday. We had a good time there. Then we saw their neighbor C. He has been doing AWESOME! C. is really coming along. We actually met his parents. They're really cool and down to Earth. His parents really enjoy what we do. We just asked them if we could have permission to reach their son and there was nothing secretive "In fact here's this and this if you want to read a few pamphlets and join in with us on the lessons you are more than welcome to learn what he's learning." and they were like "No. We're Catholic but we really like what you're doing with my son. Before he never really said prayer on his food and now he prays on his food and we think that's cool!" That's one step in progress is his parents. We don't know if we'll teach his parents but I think his parents will come along as we keep teaching C. C. has had various different questions. If any of you know what the show Supernatural is, It's about two brothers and it's I guess it's a scifi show?? He watches that a lot but he has a lot of questions from it like "Is Michael the archangel the one that is going to completely destroy Lucifer?" And I guess there is some truth to that?? Maybe at the last day?? I don't know. lol. Just weird questions but, when he comes to the spirituality of things, when he's really sincere and not just curious, it comes down to the atonement of Jesus Christ. He understands that this is something he needs to do. We actually had a lesson with him yesterday but I'll get to that in a min, but now we have permission from his parents! Awesome!
Wednesday: We had a miracle. We have a member named B. C. who we taught last week at a dinner lesson. We shared with them the video "Strive". It's the youth video on Mormon Channel. We tied into how we are to get rid of our mediocrity and also our progression in the gospel in general. It needs to be more of a constant thing and not just a recourse. Like the Holy Ghost is always telling us to do better things but if we don't do what it tells us to do the first time it will just give us more recourse and tell us to do one thing, if we're not doing that we'll drop ourselves to a lower level and then it will tell us to do better at that. So we tied it into becoming better. We also tied into missionary work. One of the things they said was that their father was really against them being baptized before and their father grew up rough with them I guess you could say. So it was really hard for B. and her sister to get baptized into the church. They were telling us about it and how they want their dad to open his heart a little bit and change (that actually happened last week) so wednesday we got a call from B. and she's like "Elders! My dad gave us a call and he wants us to meet with him! He said he misses us so much and hasn't seen us in forever and he feels like he wants to be different. He's sorry for things he did in the past." It was just a random phone call that she got about this miracle so she felt like she needed to share that with us and we are super happy for her! The only unfortunate thing is we're not going to be able to teach her dad. He's not a member but the other Elders can teach him because he's in their area in Wood Lake. It's still the hastening of the work either way you look at it! Anyway! That was cool! We had a mutual activity. The reason we went was to support two investigators E. and A. They are A's daughters. It was just a bonfire get together. We roasted marshmallows and made s'mores. We got to meet the youth and get to know and befriend them. The big event was the bishop was going to burn down two Christmas trees. He had this line of toilet paper that started by the swimming pool and was around a 30 foot line of toilet paper all the way to the tree and it was wrapped around one tree and the the other tree was standing next to it. So he had soaked the toilet paper in gasoline. He shared a spiritual message. He basically asked them how fire pertained to the holy ghost. He shared a message about how we needed the holy ghost to be more illuminated in our lives and how we can exercise that. So he went to burn the tree (and this is the funny part), and he started the fire at the beginning of the roll and it caught fire SUPER fast!! Here's the big, bright, flaming line of toilet paper zooming across and it went all the way across the 30 foot line and when it got to the top of the branch on on the tree it was like BLOOP! The flame got as small as my finger and the fire slowed WAY down and very slowly started the tree on fire and everybody was like "HOOOOOOO YEAH!!!!!!" lol. It was really funny because we were expecting this big BOOM of fire and it just was really wimpy at the end. hahaha! Our investigators got really good fellowshipped tho! Fun activity, good time with the youth. We also went and saw A. after the activity that night. She just recently got noticed that she has a higher chance of having cancer but she doesn't know what kind. The doctor says it is cancer but they don't know if it's malignant or benign. The doctors are going to do is send her to San Fransisco and get her cleared for operation. She's having a hard time so we gave her a blessing that the operation would go well and the rest of the process will go smoothly and get resolved. So we're keeping her and her family in our prayers.
Thursday: There wasn't a whole lot going on except we got to meet the new missionaries for the first time. Tanner's trainer used to be here in Visalia and was transferred to Hanford. If you all haven't gotten the news I guess I'll wait for him to tell you where he is. He's not in my zone but he's going to be with an Elder Perkin's. Really good elder! Awesome, awesome missionary. Elder, uh, Taylor (I guess now he is. That's weird to say) is going to be having a really good trainer and training period. I'm really excited for him. We saw our two other missionaries. Elder Herman is with Elder Stojka. That's going to be good for them! We also saw Sister Anderson, from Utah. She's good friends with one of the sisters here in the mission. Anyway, we met them and they're awesome! It's crazy how time flies by so fast and you see all these new missionaries coming in and... I feel SOOO old now! Lol. I don't feel like I know anyone! All these new missionaries and faces that I don't even know. That's just how weird it is and how old I am (as far as missionaries). hahaha. Later we saw C. again. We brought a HS friend named C. and we had a good lesson. C. had a guitar and Elder Frame said "Hey! My companion knows how to play the guitar" so we kind of busted out the guitar for awhile. I showed them what's up. They liked it! They enjoyed it I guess lol. I'm trying to be humble here. LOL. So we had a good time. Their mom was really cool with us after that and said "Oh you play the guitar?? That's awesome!!" We had a good lesson and I kind of felt like I needed to chastise myself after because I told myself I wouldn't play the guitar anymore till I was off my mission. Now I need to renew my commitment. So I haven't played the guitar since and only play on P-Day now.
Friday: It was alright I guess. Friday wasn't the greatest day but we had a fun time at the church activity. We played soccer with the sister's and the new investigators. They're a family of 8, they're HUGE! A few other people also. We had a fun time! It was great! A little bit rough, I'm not the best soccer player! lol. All these Mexican's running through my legs and doing tricks and I'm trying to keep up with them. Hahaha! Still can't get the hang of soccer and I've been out here for a long time! We taught a few lessons. None worth mentioning tho.
Saturday: We had our Zone Meeting. I gave a training. Sister Nada gave a training. Elder Cho gave a training. The best way the the CFM is going to hasten the work is through finding. It is inspired from God. Everything we went over in the meeting is essential for our zone. Hopefully we can practice it more often. That's one thing that lacks, is role plays and practices. We just need to own our skills I guess. Really fun, good, productive meeting. Saw M. our investigator who really warmed up to us. It was cool at the end of the lesson we followed up if she was reading the BOM with B. her daughter and she actually has been. She's been doing that a lot more. We praised her and told her to keep doing that. We told her that it would bless her life. I'm not sure how we got talking about the spirit world, but she's been having these weird spiritual experiences with family members that appear to her in dreams. Like her mom and aunts. And we were like HEY! Those are real!! I told her about when Cole passed away and I talked about how someone called Grandma Gardner and told them that Heather had Dax and Gramma said "Yeah I know!" and they asked how she knew and she said "I had a dream about Cole and he was holding Dax and looking at him" I can't remember for sure so correct me if I'm wrong but I think Cole kissed him and he disappeared and that was the end of the dream and that's how she knew. I thought that was really cool so I shared that experience with M. and she was thought that was really sweet and cool. I think the whole purpose was so that she can recognize that there are guardian angels and people who watch over us. Those people who look over us constantly need our help. We talked about work for the dead and how she can have her ancestors be baptized. She thought that was a really cool blessing. I think that will help her to catch more interest. She really warmed up to us.
Sunday: This was our day to remember. We were on fire!! It was awesome! We went on team up. We taught several different people. Within the hours that we had to teach we ended up teaching six different lessons all with member presence. We found three new investigators that night. With a member present. Hardly ever does that happen!! Normally missionaries don't do that because investigators don't feel warmed up to the members but, after that experience I felt like that that's totally false! We should use members more often when we find new people!! My companion went and saw a less active family and they found their son's girlfriend is actually interested and the son was really excited! I wasn't able to be present but that was a new investigator. We taught C. again, about the atonement. I think next time we're going to talk about how to obtain the full blessings of the atonement. I think he understands why but now he just needs to understand that baptism is the only access and way that a person is able to receive the fullness of the atonement. That's why we're baptized unto repentance. Another new investigator was a guy named H. and his wife. They told us they were Catholic but they wanted to hear what we had to say because they had been to Mormon churches before and they had some doubts about Joseph Smith and the BOM. So we told them we'd come back on Wednesday. It was a great day.
I guess that sums up my entire week. If you have any questions after this just write them. I'm sorry I've been really bad at replying and answering questions if there are any. I'll try to do better at that. I don't know if I ever shared with all of you my testimony.
(Bares testimony in Spanish)
Well I love ya'll! I hope you enjoyed that! I will be seeing you next Monday! Let me know if you have questions. I love hearing from you.
Love,
Elder Horrocks
January 25th
Hello Everyone! Elder Horrocks speaking! What I'm going to be doing here is... I'm going to try doing something a little bit different instead of trying to have all of the recordings sent all of the recordings sent on Monday at once I'm going to try to do them daily instead. That way when I get to email I can start emailing right off the bat. That way I can respond to everyone's emails and answer some questions. This should be good! Sooooooooo...
Monday: I emailed you and had a good P-Day. We played volleyball and my companion spiked the ball right... to where it counts! Right in my unit! LOL. (Conversation starts between Elder Frame and Alex here).
E.F.: Yeah!! And then just freakin' threw the ball at me!!
E.H.: Well cause I tried to **laughing hard** I tried to smack the ball over the net and then BOOP!
E.F.: **laughing uncontrollably** NO you didn't! You just threw it up in the net and UGHHHHH! **laughing hard**
E.H.: Anyway... **laughing hard**! So... We both got paybacks! SO!! Anyhow! LOL. What else did we do that day??
E.F.: That day?? We got a haircut.
E.H.: Yeah we got haircuts.
E.F.: They were really expensive!
E.H.: Yeah they were like $16
E.F.: Yeah it was ridiculous...
E.H.: Yeah we forgot that we had some free haircut people.
E.F.: Yep!
E.H.: Uhhhh, Brother Garcia, Sister Garcia. Yeah the Husband ...What else did we do that day?? We didn't do much.
E.F.: We broke our fast. That was really good that day.
E.H.: Oh yeah!! We had a really lonnnnng fast the week before!! **both are laughing**
E.F.: We like fasted the WHOLE WEEK!! LOL
E.H.: We had like a, yeah it was like, we had simultaneous stops because something came up last Friday. Last Friday we stopped our fast because President asked us to go eat lunch and help a companionship so we were like "alright we'll stop". And then the next day **laughing hard again**. Uhhhhhh...
E.F.: Yeah why did we stop the next day???
E.H.: Something happened. Then Sunday night we went to the R.'s house and she gave us hot chocolate and we took a sip and we were like "DOH!! Wait!! Whoa whoa!! Wait! Wait!! We not! We're supposed to fast!!!! WE'RE FASTING!!"
E.F.: And then you were tempted by it! I'm like, **Alex is laughing hard**
E.H.: Well I sat there holding it in my hands in the back of the car and C.... **laughing** and I was like "THIS IS SOOOOO GOOD!!
E.F.: And C., he's just drinking his and like "This is sooooo good Elder!! Are you sure you don't want some??" **laughing**
E.H.: "What are you going to do with it???" **long pause** "I think I'll just take a couple more sips and throw it out the window..." **Hee* and he starts busting. **mischievous laughs** "You can't serve two masters Elder!!"
E.F.: And then C. laughed!! It was soooo funny!!
E.H.: **pause** You know I'm recording all of this??? Right???
E.F. **long pause** Yeah??? Sure??? **both laughing again** I was just chatting with you dude!! **both laughing** **pause** Well... Uhh... Elder Horrocks family... LOVE YA!!!
E.H.: **laughing** We love ya!! If you haven't heard that yet!
E.F.: Well love you!! I'm gonna go... and... *longer pause** do... some stuff **Alex laughing hard**
E.H.: Well go do your stuff then! **laughing** **clears throat** ANYWAY!!
Well that sums up our prep day except for the people we taught. We made some new investigators! And we're pretty sure that they're lesbians because, ummmm, it was pretty awkward!! Uhhh... So, here's the thing. We went to teach a member named M.P. and they're in this really ghetto apartment complex and we were sitting there and she's like "come on in!" and we're like "is there a guy in the house??" and she says nooo. And we said well we can't come in... and she was like "YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BRING A MAN!!" lol. And we didn't know anything about it so, we were confused and we said we would just come back. Can we come back?? Just so we were able to be obedient, there were these two girls just across the way and we're like "Hey what's up??? What's going on??". And she says (in a deep voice) "Hey!! What's up man?? Ya'll come ova here!! Share da wurd!!" (all super gangster with us) and we thought they were like 13 year old boys!! We looked at them and one of them was drinking a beer and the other one was smoking a cigarette and we were like "DANG!!". And Elder Frame says "How old are you??" and they're like "23 and you??" "21..." Dang! You look like you're 14 or something! LOL and you sound like a little boy!! LOL!! Soooooo, their names are D. and S. They're an interesting deal! We ended up sharing with them a little short scripture instead of teaching them a lesson. We talked about God's plan with them and she was like "What is God's plan??" and it was kind of all over the place but we taught them John 3:16-17 and why Jesus Christ came and all that jazz. They understood and they were like "Yeah!! I respect you!!" and they asked us to come back and they were SUPER surprised when we went back! Lol. (I'll get to that). Lol. That's when we thought that they were maybe lesbian's. So!
Tuesday: Tuesday is when we went back and that's when we found out they were lesbian's because we walked up and they're like "COME ON IN!!" and we tried to find a man to help us so we could go into the house and we go in there and there is D., S., and there's like four other girls in there. She tells us "COME ON IN!!" and Elder Frame asks if there is a man in the house and one the girls is like "YO!! I'm da man o da house righ here!!". So we were like alllllllllright then... Good for you!! Lol. So that kind of signified that maybe they're all lesbian's, but whatever!! So we do not know if they are lesbian investigators yet but we'll find out soon. We also sat up the broadcast for the missionary general conference. We went and saw J.V. and dedicated her house. She asked us some questions about polygamy. It was a good lesson. We helped her understand the difference between marrying and sealing. Good lesson!! Then we saw one of our new investigators A. She's actually a 16 year old girl and her boyfriend is a less active member named R. He's also 16. They are living together. And, Uh, that's not a good thing! That's a no no! So right now we're just teaching them the restoration. She understands fairly well that the authority was lost and all of that. Then we invited her to be baptised and she accepted. So we asked if she knew what baptism is and R. was like "Yeah! Remember you said it yesterday" and we were like "Wait!?!?? You guys talked about it before??" That is kind of a key indicator that she is pretty prepared, at least as far as accepting the baptism. We just trying to make sure she has a testimony and commitment.
Wednesday: Missionary General Conference day! One of the coolest days ever! I'll that the MGC really talked about was teaching repentance and baptising converts. Everything! Everything that they implied was teach repentance and baptize converts. There was no big change to it. OH!! By the way, this conference was broadcast to all the missionaries in the world. Anyway there wasn't anything changed. Elder Frame and I were expecting a higher expectation of baptism, but I guess you can't go against the scriptures and what they say. Like D&C 20-37 about humbling themselves and desiring and are willing to take up themselves the name of Jesus Christ, it's pretty simple! They just have to want it. But we as missionaries have to improve our part as far as teaching the repentance. There's a lot of people who are baptized but then they fall away because they don't know how to repent or they feel like they've lost themselves and not capable of coming back because of what they've done. Well that's why you're baptised in the first place!! You're baptised under repentance. There was a lot of note taking a lot of things going on. I recorded the stuff so maybe you can listen when I get home but they're too long to send. After we went to the apartment and did our studies. We had dinner and it was yummy. The highlight of the night was H. (This just happened tonight) Soooo, H. He was kind of timid and had some doubts here and there about Joseph Smith and the BOM. Funny thing is, is that he has felt the holy ghost before and it was a powerful experience in his life! Thank goodness we had our member with us. If we didn't have him with us, I don't think he would have opened his heart up to us like he did tonight. Basically what he told us was that he's been through a lot of junk in his life where he's felt really bad and needed to have women and alcohol to be happy. I guess he came to a self realization that, that wasn't what happiness was about. So the member who is a living miracle of the atonement testified of his experience and shared with him that he's been through those exact same things. It's easier when a member does it because it takes the attention off of us and focus the friendship on the member and the investigator. So H. had an experience where he felt the spirit before. He went to church (not sure which church but it doesn't matter because everywhere has the spirit of Christ), and the Holy Ghost taught him that God lived and he told us that. He said "And at some point I just knew God lives!! And what I was doing was wrong!! I felt peace and joy and this happiness. I didn't know where it came from but I just want that again!!" So we testified and left him the BOM. He also asked questions about the priesthood. Never do investigators ask about the priesthood or even know what it is!! But he asked about it because he's read the Bible. He knows about Aaron and Moses and the Melchizedek priesthood. So we were really surprised at how knowledgeable he was! Awesome thing about H. is that he has real desire! Sincere desire!! We been praying soooo hard that we could just find someone who wants to be baptized for the sake of change and he wants it!! He wants that feeling that he's had somewhere in his life back. So what a cool miracle. That's just everything in a nutshell. As we continue to visit with him we'll begin to have more experiences to tell you about! But WOW!! We went over time as far as trying to get back to the apartment but we were just following the spirit of the law... So Cool!!! I know just from that experience that God has real prepared people and members are essential!! Jesus Christ prepares the people. It all depends on our obedience and our faith to go act and do things. I feel like I've grown. My testimony of my savior has grown! I know he lives, I know he wants good things here in life and that's through his gospel and repentance. I know repentance is essential to our happiness.
Sorry if I sound dead and beat. I'm super tired today but I want to be able to do this. So Thursday: We had exchanges. He went with Elder Cho and I went with Elder Bishop. Elder Bishop is from Texas, somewhere in the outskirts of Austin. He's an awesome guys One of the best Elder's I've ever seen. He's really humble, he's very chill and relaxed. I kind of felt bad for him because the whole entire day I was speaking spanish and he didn't know a lick of what was going on. I would be talking with people and he'd just stand aside. I was hoping we'd have an opportunity to speak English so that maybe I could see what he was really about. Luckily that opportunity came, but I want to start with dinner. Dinner, awesome lesson! We actually all got together and we ate dinner at the gospel principle teacher's house here in Visalia. She is sooooo awesome!! She is like the mother of missionaries here in Visalia! She just loves them to death! She is the sweetest lady you'll ever meet! She cooked us spaghetti because she said "I don't know if you ever get tired of eating Mexican food." So I said that I hadn't eaten spaghetti in FOREVER!! So she made us spaghetti! :) So she told us a lot of different things, she KNOWS a lot of things! She's read the Bible, the BOM, D&C's, Pearl of Great Price. She's read the entire quad and she knows a lot! One thing we talked about is that the hospital told her that she is going to be having surgery on her lower back, I can't remember what the reason is exactly. Anyhow, she shared that trial with us and we shared a message based off of trials, and shared Ether 12:6 where is talks about that we don't receive a witness until after the trial of faith and for her, we tried to help her to resonate with the scripture so she could understand that with the hope that she has (she has a great connection with God) that God can help her in anything thanks to the atonement of Jesus Christ and because of that she can overcome obstacles. So she took heed to that. Then she started crying and started feeling like everything was going to be ok. She knew that God would help her. She doesn't know if it will cause death but the doctor told her that it could. I guess it's a risky deal. So she was crying and started telling us the story about her son who served a mission and that he passed away while he was serving. I think from a gas leak or something. So she told us a story about how she really loved and appreciated the missionaries. She said that her son Ronnie (that died while serving) came to her when he was young and said "Mom I need to talk to you" She said "ok son! What's going on" and he as a little boy told her "Mom! What do you expect?? An angel to come to you??" She had been talking to the missionaries about baptism. So she gave Ronnie a big hug and then she called the Elder and told that that she wanted to be baptism. It was pretty awesome how even back when he was little he was a great missionary for his mom. One of the cool stories about her son when he passed away was that she had a day she was trying to get ready for the missionaries to come over to her house for Christmas, and she was in the shower and her husband kept coming in and saying the elders were there. She told him to tell them to come in. So he went downstairs and came back up and said that they wouldn't come in until she was done, so she said to tell them to come in anyway that they were being silly. So he wen't back down again and came back up and said they're still not coming in. So she grabbed her towel and tries to hurry and dry off, get dressed and came running downstairs to see the missionaries and all the missionaries were there to give her a Christmas surprise gift. All the missionaries gathered around (this was just after her son passed away) and looked at the missionaries and started to cry. Then she heard son's voice and it said "Mom, they're here because I'm here". It was a really touching story!! She has a lot of experience. She's so converted it's not even funny. It was a great dinner with her! We really enjoyed her. We went and taught the O. family and C. We invited C. to be baptised and he said he would. We pointed out to him what a person does when they are sincere when they KNOW the things they are being taught is true and he said he'd be baptised. So we invited him to be and he said he would. The one thing that spooked him was the date, it was super soon. He said his parents might be an obstacle as well as learning everything all at once. We told him that wasn't going to learn everything all at once! He'd have to read consistently but it's not like he had to read the entire BOM to know it's true. He could do it simultaneously, pray and read every day, and that's what we as missionaries do. We pray and read every day and a confirmation always come from doing things daily. We'll see him again soon and he's supposed to be reading and praying more. Now we're just trying to help him be an agent for himself and to act.
Friday: We had President interviews so we went to Fresno to drop off some stuff from Visalia and then went back to the apartment and did our weekly planning and then we went to our interviews. Sister Clark was there and gave us a little short training. We practiced role playing and some other things. Coming to interviews I was really relieved to talk with president. His counsel is really inspired and it always helps me. I love him so much!! He helps us in so many circumstances and he helped me to realize that, this work is fun!! You just have to stay on your toes! I think that, not to point out anything confidential, but he told me that basically I needed to stay to positive so everyone else can see it and also to help ourselves to be more dignified and to help the Zone. And to remember that people are always watching. I don't remember how it was said but I think it was a Stake President from Fresno West (I know him and he's a pretty good guy) said something like, If we would always have dignified, faith building missionaries that knew the time and place to work hard, knew when to be serious and when to be laid back (or something like that ), that we would be able to baptise a lot more people. Cause there are people watching us everywhere. The Lord is watching us also. We need to be on our toes. He also told me about Tanner's response in an interview when he first got to the mission. He asked him why he wanted to serve a mission and Tanner told president that "I wanted to serve a mission... Well I actually saw my cousin come home and saw how bad he wanted to come back out and I observed him and watched him and I saw how bad he wanted it and he came back out. I thought maybe this might be something worth the while" and that kind of took me back. I never really kept in close touch with`Tanner all that much but I knew him and loved him. I didn't know he felt that way so I'm glad I was able to help him without even knowing. I pray that he'll be able to really do some good things. He sounds like he's doing good. President saw him yesterday in interviews and said that they got talking about baseball. I laughed and said YEAH!! Baseball's a topic! Baseball's a thing! And knowing Tanner he probably talked about it for awhile. I don't know haha. But he's doing really well. He's really chill, just laid back and relaxed. He's not stressing out as far as I understand. I'll be seeing him in a couple weeks at a Zone Conference. I'm really excited for that! That will be fun! We also went to volleyball for an activity and had a good time! A lot of people came, unfortunately none of them were our investigators. We need to be more on top of those things but it was a good time. Everybody is a little bit crazy when it comes to volleyball but we helped some less active come. Hopefully he'll come to church now! His name is O. He is a good man.
Saturday: We first of all went to a basketball tournament for C. He did a really good job. He and a whole bunch of non members went and we're hopefully going to be in contact with some of them here sometime soon! Their really good friends with one of the recent converts here in Visalia. Anyway, there was a YM's tournament and the Spanish Ward ended up winning it! Sooooo! I guess that's the fourth year in a row for them! So anyway we went to the tournament and it made me miss playing in tournaments and stuff. Dang that was hard! Lol. I hope I don't have to watch too many more tournaments by the end of my mission because that really made me miss playing but, it was a fun time! I really love watching the YM get into action. There was a little bit of scruff here and there, you know how church ball is. Lol. It gets pretty brutal! That afternoon kind of dragged for us. We couldn't find anyone at home. NOBODY WAS HOME!! I think they must all be out for the weekend! Fiesta's and other stuff!! I was like MY GOODNESS! Someone please!! I just want to teach somebody!! We weren't able to get to anybody until like 8:00 at night. We taught A. She just barely told us that she's going to San Fransisco for operation on her cancer on the 29th of this month. So we're going to be supporting her and hopefully we can send some missionaries over there to visit her while she's there. They're doing alright tho. Still going through some rough times. We talked about the atonement and the BOM and it's role in helping us understand the atonement. We taught them in Ivanhoe (it's a small town outside of Visalia). We also went and saw the F. family. They're less active but they have some really strong testimonies. I think it's just the commitment issue. So funny story! We made cookies for them and we went to go give them their cookies and we're outside the gate and they bust the door open and they're like "WHO IS THAT!?!??" and we're like "IT'S US!!" And they were like oh my gosh it's the Elder's! And we're like walking in looking all innocent with our cookies in our hands and they're like "OH SHOOT!!". We had originally planned to have dessert with them and they totally forgot. lol. So they were like ahhhhhhh and grabbed a cake out of the fridge and set it on the table and we ate some cookies and milk. LOL. Well they forgot! LOL. But it was alright because the cookies were enough for everyone. (Elder Frame cooked them and he's bragging about his cooking skills right now lol). We taught them and we actually found a new investigator through them named V. She has talked to missionaries before in L.A. and then she moved to Ivanhoe and has lived there for, I don't know how many years... **long pause** **starts laughing hard** Sorry!!! My companion is being a goofball!! **laughing hard** Sorry!! **can't stop laughing** ANYWAY!! **tells his companion to get out of here and laughing even harder** **clears throat** V.!! She has been living in Ivanhoe for maybe **starts laughing uncontrollably** GET OUT!!!!! **laughs for quite a while** OK!! **clears throat again** I gotta keep my cool now! **Elder Frame is giggling in the background** **Alex giggles a little more and then breaths deep** V.! She's 14 years old, she's been in Ivanhoe two years and she liked the missionaries but she wasn't really "fond" of them or talked with them but her parents did. So maybe we can get through her parents again. We asked if maybe she wanted to recommit to listening to missionaries and she said yeah!! She said she really didn't understand it so she really wants to understand what her parents are being taught.
Sunday: Sunday Funday!! Really good time at church! Really enjoyed sacrament meeting. The church talks were awesome and very spiritual. I think it touched a lot of hearts of what they were teaching about the sacrament and the meaning of it. One of our investigators A. that we found at a less actives home is awesome!! She is 16 years old. Her boyfriend is starting to come back and I think what is motivating him is that A. is committed and ready. We found a new family, the S. family. A guy named T. is a guy that we saw yesterday in the street and we were talking with people and we saw him pulling weeds and we asked to help and he told us he no, that he was ok and we told him we'd love to come by and talk to him a little bit. So we went by today. He was really relaxed about us going into his home. He told us to just come on in and we were like "Uhhh OK!" So we went in and taught him and his wife R. They had 4 boys. They're really humble people!! They have a lot of potential! The wife is a little quiet. I don't think she really liked us at first but she started warming up to us when we started to be ourselves and started laughing and let her know we're still normal people. We just have a purpose right now. That was awesome! S. family are a humble, great family. We went to dinner at the M. home and had chile rellenos. Yum! If you haven't ate it you need to look it up and eat it. Then we went and taught our ward mission leader to evaluate our teaching skills, asked him what we could do better and got some good insight. Then we taught the C. family. And that was our Sunday!!
Wow! Now my recordings are finished and I'm going to send them off to you tomorrow. I look forward to hearing from you guys. I love ya!! I feel like ya'll send me a lot of packages... I maybe need to send souvenirs or something LOL. Let me know if you want any or something LOL I don't know. Anyway! Ta ta for now! Talk to ya'll later. Love you bye.
Love,
Elder Horrocks.
February 1st
Hey ya'll! I didn't get to make my recordings day by day this time so here we are! We have an activity to go to in Hanford so I may or may not skip past a few things but I promise that they will be able to share them at sometime or another later. It's crazy that January is over!! It's like Elder Nye used to say... "Yeah! February is over!!" Seriously months go by so fast! It's not even funny! So here we are with a new month, it's February.
Monday: Of course we emailed all of you. Sounds like everyone is doing well. I'm pretty jealous of Weston's recruit. Wish I could have had those opportunities. Florida was pretty awesome when I had that opportunity to go but Weston's making some big steps! That's pretty sweet! Sounds like a lot of people are actually looking into what he's doing! So I wish him luck with that. That's going to be awesome for him in the future. Sounds like everybody else tho is doing really awesome too. If there is anything you need from me just let me know. I feel like you guys send me a lot of things and do a lot of things for me out here on the mish and I don't have any time to give something back in return but I'll make time if you ask. So as far as teaching goes we taught C. with the Garcia family. More like a FHE. We watched the prophet of the restoration video. It's a really great video. Helps me to be able to appreciate the restoration. It really does! Knowing what the saints and all of our ancestors went through is touching to know that they were willing to give their lives in order for us to be able to obtain the blessings we have. I think C. is on the edge of he wants to understand church history and why these things are so important and why it's so big. So we showed him the video and I think he has a greater understanding of the love that exemplifies in the gospel and people want to share these things. It's because it's blessed so many lives. I think Joseph Smith: The Restoration Video (the hour long one in case you're wondering) kind of gives that feel.
Tuesday: We had what was called a zone counsel. I think I mentioned last week that we had a missionary broadcast. It was for all the missionaries worldwide and they counseled us and reminded us of who we were. To always keep the Lord's name on our lips and we are to teach repentance and baptize converts. So we got together as a zone and we kind of came up with an expectation. We received a lot of revelation and felt a lot of good things are going to happen. We expect a lot of good things are going to come from the zone for it. Dinner was great!! The S. family!! I don't know if I've ever mentioned them before but I love them to death! The first time I've eaten French food. She's American but she cooked us some French bread and some other cool things and I was like "WOW!!" I felt like I was in a fancy restaurant. I guess that's what you get for eating with a different culture. They love the missionaries. I really appreciate their help with us. We ended up sharing a message with them and they gave us I swear like five names!! Our dinner ended up going a little bit over but man, they were just spewing out all of these names!! They were giving us name by name!! There neighbor that speaks spanish and all of these other people!! There we just sending us referrals!! So we stayed of course and got all of that! So that was the highlight of that day :)
Wednesday: I don't like mentioning Wednesday as much. I'll explain why... I've been talking to my companion about about like school and all those good things. I told him that I didn't know if there was much time, if any, especially when you're a zone leader. You're always constantly doing other things to help missionaries and stuff. So I've been wondering what I am going to do to prepare for schooling and stuff like that and I gave him my options. I think what I'll do when I go and prepare for school, I have two ways, I want to either 1. Go to work and also continue to get my general and stuff. You know how they say on your mission that you really know what you want to be?? Well I'm really trying to find out what I want to be. I've had some good input from my companions saying I could be a counselor. I guess something I've developed on my mission is being able to relate to people. So I'm like UHHHHH MAYBE??? I don't know!! I also like leaning towards Sports Medicine because it's something I loved and something that I was passionate about before. So ANYWAY... So I went to my old UVU link and I thought about it and I was thinking that that would be awesome and I wouldn't mind going back to Utah Valley. It was really fun and a good experience. The crazy thing about it all is that it's not very far away!! I don't like it at all!!! Preparing for the future is a lot more than I expected! I thought that I was busy as a missionary and I am busy as a missionary don't get me wrong, I am super busy! But even more so it doesn't change! There ain't no rest for the wicked they say. Seriously there is NO down time for those kinds of things. So I was looking into it and I was like HOLY HECK!! There's so much information I don't know where to go or where to start. So the other thing is that I either want to start school in August or maybe put off a semester and maybe work at home for a semester and go to night school. I know I wouldn't have anything to do and probably wouldn't have much fun but I also need to a car if I want to go around anywhere and that's an obstacle to overcome so I'm going to need a little cha-ching for those kinds of things. So I'm feeling a little bit apprehensive about the future. It's just so weird and it just slapped me in the face realizing that HEY that's just around the corner. When you come on a mission it's a privilege!! You take every advantage of every minute that you have and the Lord will bless you for the rest of your life, so I'm trying to keep that mindset. Trying to stay focused. Knowing that the Lord will provide and things will work out. So moving on... Wednesday night we went back to the S. family. It was a good lesson. They really like us. Another funny story... This is our second lesson with them and as we're talking, they didn't read the restoration pamphlet so we decided that we would read it with them. So we read it and we're on the second page and they had to leave somewhere so go through it quickly and their son **laughing** B. rips the loudest, rancid fart I've ever heard or ever smelled!! It was so funny but soooooo bad!!! Elder Frame and I and everyone else was laughing pretty hard! So YEAH!! That was funny.
Thursday: We had a service project called project homeless. We found it on the Just Serve website and we basically just went and just took orders. What the project was, was a bunch of stands of I think clothes or things that they were giving away??? I don't know if they charged or anything. Anyway they had a whole lot of things going on. It was just some way or another to help the homeless, so there were a lot of homeless people there. As we went in we were the clean up crew. Cleaned up the tables. We didn't participate in the activities much but we came right at the end so that we could clean up tables and they were expecting the clean up to take around two hours but because of us 18 missionaries in the zone being there it only took and hour so they were like "Thanks for coming!! When are you going to come again???" So we were like "That's the right question!" lol. So we had a good service activity. Met a lot of different people. I met a guy from the Dominican Republic and he played baseball. He wasn't homeless or anything, just a volunteer. So he played in a baseball league in the Dominican Republic. I was talking to him about it and we talked about Albert Pujols and all these other awesome baseball players. So we really got to know him! Unfortunately we aren't allowed to proselyte as missionaries and so we weren't able to get his numbers. We're not supposed to do that at Just Serve projects. We're just supposed to get our name out there and then hopefully they ask us for information. I'm not sure why. That's just the way they want us to do it. Soooo we met him, he was really cool. Different kind of Spanish speaking for sure! Way different than what you hear in the states. Overall he was a really awesome dude. Later on the day we went on exchanges with the assistants. We to Fresno and went in their area. I went with Elder Mo'o (spelling??) I think he's from Syracuse. He's tongan and he's super cool!! He's going to play football at Snow College. That morning we were running and tossing the ball around and when we were running he was like "why don't you just go play at snow college with me??" and I was like "DUDE!! I'm way too small!! I can't. I'd have to get husk!" I don't know. Football is probably not my plan for the future. It would be COOL but probably not. As much as I love him and football I don't think I can. I'm not up for the deal. Anyway, great exchanges with them.
Friday: That morning we were in Fresno so we didn't have to drive from Visalia to Fresno. We had MLC with President Clark. This probably doesn't have much significance to you at home but we have this thing that is called the culture. The Mission Culture. It's not like a to-do list but it's like an outline of what we do as missionaries in the CFM and President Clark showed it to all of us at the meeting and was like "Do you all recognize this??? Do you know what this is??" and we were like "yeah that's the culture" and he grabbed it and ripped it in half and into pieces and we were all wondering what in the world he was doing! He said "It's gone! We're not going to use it anymore". I think why is because, in the missionary broadcast, that's the culture we should be using. What the brethren are telling us. So we're really not making a new culture we're just following what the brethren are saying. We're always constantly watching their videos of the broadcast. Using it as "game film" I guess you could say. To help us become better. We're making a lot of changes that's for sure!! That's what the whole MLC meeting was for. We received a lot of revelation. We had a lot of different aspects and different things that we wanted to do. It was a very revelatory experiences. We also had our church activity. **sigh** They're good when a lot of people, a lot of less actives come. They're very effective in that matter. But when NOBODY comes?? I think we should just do it every other Friday. Maybe it just gets old for people?? There were only three members that came and the rest of us missionaries and we just played volleyball. It was fun! Don't get me wrong but I think we'll end up doing it every other Friday to try to get more people coming.
Saturday: We taught a lot on Saturday. Not a lot worth mentioning so I'll move on to Sunday. Sunday has a lot of stuff!
Sunday: We saw the S. family. This was really cool. It was so cool that Elder Frame and I didn't even know what to do with ourselves! So as missionaries when we give commitments and people don't do their commitments it's because people aren't really sincere. The other thing is after we read the restoration pamphlet with them we committed them to read it again and we promised them blessing. We knew it could bless their lives and open up their minds. So Elder Frame asked them if they read it and he was like yeah I read it! So we asked what stuck out and what did he learn. He was like "well there was this guy that was looking for truth and trying to find a church and he had an experience which lead him to which church he should join and there were a series of prophets I guess you could say. And there's this thing called priesthood, I've never heard of it, but it diminishes infant baptism. So it's like baptism for adults." So Elder Frame and I kind of sat there in awe and we were like "OH! Well!! Yeah!! That's totally true!!" You all are probably thinking why is that so significant. But not all people keep their commitments and missionary work can be hard sometimes. We were just like "he's truly seeking!" He wants to have a better life for his children. I think that is his whole purpose of him reading it. Knowing that he learned about the restoration himself, that should totally give him an aspect of how it can bless his life. So we taught and we testified. We really taught by the spirit because they had questions and because they read the pamphlet they were able to give us insight to where we could have this gospel conversation. It was REALLY cool!! He is truly seeking!! So we asked him questions like "If this is true, If you found this for yourself to be true, doesn't that mean that you would need to be baptized??
and he said yes and we asked him if he would be when he found out that they were true, and he said yes but that he'd have to learn more and he didn't want to jump into it right away. We we like "Oh yeah! Totally!! We understand". He's solid! He's really solid! They're progressing. Their kids really love us. They love having us over. They're welcoming and nice and they're starting to become what you would call a "dry Mormon" all they need is the manifestation of the spirit so they can know what we're teaching is true. We're going to be seeing them on Wednesday so pray that their answer came that what we teach them is true. We have faith that because of his faith that he is going to receive an answer. That was really cool and increased our faith knowing that there are prepared people out there. You just have to go find them. All of Sunday we taught a lot of lessons. We had our team up, our ward mission leader came with us. He's super helpful and and awesome guy! I really liked yesterday! That's for sure! Sunday was a really good day.
I need to get going. I hope you had a great week. I love you all and I hope that everything that's hard at home, I don't know if there is anything going on at home for me. Just pray that everything out here will be able to work out. I think we're starting to come out of our dry spell of our missionary work. Everythings working out. Elder Frame and I are starting to see more people become more converted as well as ourselves. The gospel is true!! Missions are awesome!! Missions have totally changed my perspective of life and the things that I want to do. I love ya!! Buh Bye :)
Love,
Elder Horrocks
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